Sleep story · quiet, home
The house after everyone is asleep — a slow story for the end of the day, if you are fitting this around other people — for an overtired night
The hour when the house belongs to nobody and nothing needs doing.
Lights off. Press begin and let the story read itself to you, at the pace of sleep.
Screen on or off — we suggest dimming it, or simply closing your eyes after the first paragraph.
The story, in full
The radiator clicks once as it cools down. The clock in the hallway ticks slightly behind the one in the kitchen. Everyone went to bed an hour ago, and the house has stopped making the sounds it makes during the day.
The floorboards have stopped creaking because nobody is walking on them. Outside, a car goes past and its headlights sweep across the ceiling, then are gone. The fridge hums on and off in the kitchen, and that is the loudest thing in the building.
Notice how much of you has already stopped moving. Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop.
Feel the weight of your head on the pillow. Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine.
Everything in the room is exactly where it was left. A glass of water sits on the table, half finished.
Let your thumbs rest where they landed. Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other.
Feel the back of your knees soften into the bed. Your fingers can stop doing anything at all.
There is a chair by the window that nobody sits in during the day. There is nothing left on the list for today.
Let your palms open if they were closed. Let everything you were holding today stay on the floor beside the bed.
The lamp beside you is the only light left on in the whole house. The curtains are not quite closed, and there is a thin line of streetlight along the wall.
Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it. Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be.
The lamp beside you is the only light left on in the whole house. Outside, a car goes past and its headlights sweep across the ceiling, then are gone.
Notice the places where your body touches the bed, and let them be heavy. Feel your cheeks let go.
The radiator clicks once as it cools down. The curtains are not quite closed, and there is a thin line of streetlight along the wall.
Notice any urge to check something. You can wait two more minutes. Notice any part of you that wants this to be over.
Notice your hips, wide and settled. Feel your heels sink a little into the mattress.
Stay. The words can start to blur now.
Let the breath be the only thing you are doing. Let it all get further away. Nothing here needs following closely.
Let the thoughts come and go without you getting up to answer. Let each breath be a little smaller than the last. You do not have to count them.
It is designed to fit around other people’s schedules.
Goodnight. There is nothing left to do.
21 paragraphs, roughly 4 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for quiet, home.
If this story does not settle you, try Sleep story: a caravan by the sea, when you are cold and want to be warm — for waking too early, A lighthouse at the end of a long day, when nothing else has worked today — for waking too early or A garden in the rain (a sleep story), if you are doing this instead of scrolling — for a night when you do not want to think.